TERATOLOGY 46:417-418 (19921
Commentary
A Personal Perspective on the Thalidomide Tragedy When asked by Dr. Brent for a comment on Dr. Lipson’s letter, I felt somewhat at a loss, as any short statement is bound to simplify a complicated matter. The information contained in Dr. Lipson’s letter is probably of some interest to the readers of Teratology. As it touches some personal questions, a few personal remarks may be justified. The books of Sjostrom and Nilsson and of Knightly and others have their merits by presenting a detailed and carefully researched history of the events connected with thalidomide not otherwise obtainable. Their points of view, though apparently quite natural for a lawyer and a newspaper team, are, however, based on selected facts and not entirely impartial in judgment. In a law suit the disputed question is, who is right?; in science the only concern should be, what is right. In Lipson’s letter I do not like the word heroic; I a m possibly sensitized against that word by its general misuse during the time when I was brought up in Germany from 1919 to 1939. There is. in addition. a more pragmatic objection against hero worship. Newspapers, books, and fiction plays in television often present the clich6 of a brave and good hero, who enjoys exposing supposed scandals and fighting the bad guys in industry or government. Such models induce many would-be heros to seek the applause of a n uninformed and uncritical public, thus losing any sense for weighing factual evidence and sober judgment. An atmosphere of anxiety and mistrust is created, out of proportion to real dangers. Everybody who has studied the incidence of malformations in man will realize the discrepancy between widely circulated rumors on malformation epidemics in Hungary, Italy, Argentina, Vietnam, and parts of the USA and the total lack of positive evidence. Scientists often hesitate to inform the people, as in a n atmosphere of witchhunt, a non-believer in witchcraft is branded as a bad heretic. The short article in the newspaper Welt 0 1992 WILEY-LISS, INC.
am Sonntag of October 26, 1961, was written by the well-known journalist and book author Dr. G. Prause, who had been informed of my suspicion by Dr. Wessolowski. I had asked my colleagues from the Hamburg Pediatric Association to help me with my investigation before I suspected that thalidomide might be the cause. Dr. Wessolowski has been particularly active in supplying information, so I informed him of my supposition. He and Dr. Prause, his brother-in-law, discussed the matter and agreed that my suspicion should be published. By some mysterious way, representatives of Gruenenthal got wind of the intention. Alarmed by this news, on October 2 3 , 1961, one of them visited Professor Schaefer, head of the Department of Pediatrics of Hamburg University, to tell him that I would go to the press. He tried to prevent the publishing. Schaefer came to warn me from such a step. “You will fall on your back. You have finished your task by informing Gruenenthal and the Hamburg Health authorities.” I replied that so far I had not considered a n approach to the press but would feel absolutely free to do anything which might speed up the removal of thalidomide from the market. Despite our somewhat heated discussion, Professor Schaefer did everything in his power to help me with my work and to encourage me during the following weeks. Thalidomide or its German trade name Contergan was mentioned neither in my discussion presented in Diisseldorf on October 18, 1961, nor in Dr. Prause’s article. It was called by name, however, in a short note spread throughout the world by an international press agency on October 25, 1961, saying that the Dusseldorf Ministry of the Interior had prohibited the sale of thalidomide becase of a suspicion of its terato-
Heceived February 4, 1992; accepted July 12, 1992.
418
W. LENZ
genicity. This news was revoked a short time thereafter, too late fortunately to prevent publishing in the newspapers of many countries. The source of the press agency news report has never been disclosed, but i t was probably in the Ministry of the Interior, where the matter had been amply discussed on November 24, 1961, among representatives of Chemie Gruenenthal and the Ministry, and myself. The so-called expert witnesses produced by Chemie Gruenenthal had one thing in common; none of them had specifically studied thalidomide cases. The well-known embryologist Professor Erich Blechschmidt did not even mention thalidomide in his 1 hour lecture on what might be called “Pure Blechschmidtism,” a n amazing mixture of pre-Darwinian “idealistic morphology” and religious dogma on the nature of man. Rlechschmidt is in some way a creationist who thinks that comparative anatomy is worthless and t h a t morphogenesis is governed by “forces” (“Krafte”), which can be
demonstrated by drawing arrows on photographs of histological preparations from embryos. Only after Blechschmidt had finished his talk did he produce a small piece of paper from his pocket and read aloud to a n astonished audience: “It is unthinkable that thalidomide causes malformations.” One might agree that for Blechschmidt’s philosophy the idea that a chemical might induce malformations must appear as a materialistic heresy. When the judge, who obviously had some difficulties in following Blechschmidt’s ideas, asked him for more specific arguments, he took off one of his shoes, like Khrushchev before the UN, presented i t to the judge, and said: “If a shoe does not fit, I can feel it.” It did not occur to him that possibly his foot did not fit any shoe.
PROF. WIDUKINDLENZ,EMERITUS Institute of Human Genetics Westfalische Wilhelms-University Miinster, Germany
Commentary
A Personal Perspective on the Thalidomide Tragedy When asked by Dr. Brent for a comment on Dr. Lipson’s letter, I felt somewhat at a loss, as any short statement is bound to simplify a complicated matter. The information contained in Dr. Lipson’s letter is probably of some interest to the readers of Teratology. As it touches some personal questions, a few personal remarks may be justified. The books of Sjostrom and Nilsson and of Knightly and others have their merits by presenting a detailed and carefully researched history of the events connected with thalidomide not otherwise obtainable. Their points of view, though apparently quite natural for a lawyer and a newspaper team, are, however, based on selected facts and not entirely impartial in judgment. In a law suit the disputed question is, who is right?; in science the only concern should be, what is right. In Lipson’s letter I do not like the word heroic; I a m possibly sensitized against that word by its general misuse during the time when I was brought up in Germany from 1919 to 1939. There is. in addition. a more pragmatic objection against hero worship. Newspapers, books, and fiction plays in television often present the clich6 of a brave and good hero, who enjoys exposing supposed scandals and fighting the bad guys in industry or government. Such models induce many would-be heros to seek the applause of a n uninformed and uncritical public, thus losing any sense for weighing factual evidence and sober judgment. An atmosphere of anxiety and mistrust is created, out of proportion to real dangers. Everybody who has studied the incidence of malformations in man will realize the discrepancy between widely circulated rumors on malformation epidemics in Hungary, Italy, Argentina, Vietnam, and parts of the USA and the total lack of positive evidence. Scientists often hesitate to inform the people, as in a n atmosphere of witchhunt, a non-believer in witchcraft is branded as a bad heretic. The short article in the newspaper Welt 0 1992 WILEY-LISS, INC.
am Sonntag of October 26, 1961, was written by the well-known journalist and book author Dr. G. Prause, who had been informed of my suspicion by Dr. Wessolowski. I had asked my colleagues from the Hamburg Pediatric Association to help me with my investigation before I suspected that thalidomide might be the cause. Dr. Wessolowski has been particularly active in supplying information, so I informed him of my supposition. He and Dr. Prause, his brother-in-law, discussed the matter and agreed that my suspicion should be published. By some mysterious way, representatives of Gruenenthal got wind of the intention. Alarmed by this news, on October 2 3 , 1961, one of them visited Professor Schaefer, head of the Department of Pediatrics of Hamburg University, to tell him that I would go to the press. He tried to prevent the publishing. Schaefer came to warn me from such a step. “You will fall on your back. You have finished your task by informing Gruenenthal and the Hamburg Health authorities.” I replied that so far I had not considered a n approach to the press but would feel absolutely free to do anything which might speed up the removal of thalidomide from the market. Despite our somewhat heated discussion, Professor Schaefer did everything in his power to help me with my work and to encourage me during the following weeks. Thalidomide or its German trade name Contergan was mentioned neither in my discussion presented in Diisseldorf on October 18, 1961, nor in Dr. Prause’s article. It was called by name, however, in a short note spread throughout the world by an international press agency on October 25, 1961, saying that the Dusseldorf Ministry of the Interior had prohibited the sale of thalidomide becase of a suspicion of its terato-
Heceived February 4, 1992; accepted July 12, 1992.
418
W. LENZ
genicity. This news was revoked a short time thereafter, too late fortunately to prevent publishing in the newspapers of many countries. The source of the press agency news report has never been disclosed, but i t was probably in the Ministry of the Interior, where the matter had been amply discussed on November 24, 1961, among representatives of Chemie Gruenenthal and the Ministry, and myself. The so-called expert witnesses produced by Chemie Gruenenthal had one thing in common; none of them had specifically studied thalidomide cases. The well-known embryologist Professor Erich Blechschmidt did not even mention thalidomide in his 1 hour lecture on what might be called “Pure Blechschmidtism,” a n amazing mixture of pre-Darwinian “idealistic morphology” and religious dogma on the nature of man. Rlechschmidt is in some way a creationist who thinks that comparative anatomy is worthless and t h a t morphogenesis is governed by “forces” (“Krafte”), which can be
demonstrated by drawing arrows on photographs of histological preparations from embryos. Only after Blechschmidt had finished his talk did he produce a small piece of paper from his pocket and read aloud to a n astonished audience: “It is unthinkable that thalidomide causes malformations.” One might agree that for Blechschmidt’s philosophy the idea that a chemical might induce malformations must appear as a materialistic heresy. When the judge, who obviously had some difficulties in following Blechschmidt’s ideas, asked him for more specific arguments, he took off one of his shoes, like Khrushchev before the UN, presented i t to the judge, and said: “If a shoe does not fit, I can feel it.” It did not occur to him that possibly his foot did not fit any shoe.
PROF. WIDUKINDLENZ,EMERITUS Institute of Human Genetics Westfalische Wilhelms-University Miinster, Germany
